Robert Niessner wrote:I really doubt that BMD could afford a price reduction on the 4.6k Minis. They have stated that they invested around 10 Millions into the development of the customized sensor. I'd guesstimate that the production of the 4.6k EF costs around 1,200 to 1,800 per camera after production has been ramped up.
Guessing a team of 30 engineers, developers, and alpha testers to be paid for at least two years, that's another 4 Millions. Add the cost for the workplaces, tools and hardware and other additional fixed costs. Marketing. Support. Service under guarantee. Shipping. And much more. Maybe another 4m.
Let's assume there is a market for 10,000 4.6k Minis:
Total costs of those would be around 20 Millions. Sold for 4,000 per camera makes them 40 millions turnover. Subtract the vendors margin of let's say 800 per unit gets you a profit before taxes of 40-20-8 = 12 Millions. Then comes the taxes, cost for continued development of the firmware, investment into future products. Service and support team. Maybe a team bonus for all. And of course the management.
And this is more of a best case scenario if 10,000 cameras can be sold. If only 5,000 can be sold, profit goes down considerably because of the same high fixed costs divided onto less units.
No, I don't think we will see a huge price drop anytime soon. Maybe in two years after release.
Turns out it looks like delays are fab delays, so it could be millions. So I doubt that there will be a price drop much. The price drop is to do with keeping ahead, selling more, and starving the undercutting competition. A happy BMD owner is likely to result in more sales. It keeps competition at bay, something Red turned there backs on and allowed BMD to come in easily. Red etc, are doing what they should have done years ago. But I expect them to again slash their prices in half as more things are paid off...
Now sales. Frankly they should be doing 100k sakes, not 10k, if they had the right product that could displace sales of most pro video cameras, and high end digital stills. This needs a realistic look at operational use and workflows accriss the video and still sectors. A getting real on multiple sensor acquisition that gives dslr like results in full light, and liuid lens technology. Something it looks like the cinrma only sector is not up with. 10k probably follows my prediction of 12 years ago for a camera like this relative to complete package pricing in a market like this. 100k requires more. But maybe I am wrong, maybe the camera is much more capable than people have been telling me.
Now, wouldn't you agree that all the years of design experience built up (and previous design reused in the camera) has reduced the money and time needed to design this camera?
I imagine the 10 million might include a series of related sensors (sensors of different size using the same sensor pixel pad size can be much the same, even adjusting the size still uses related design rules) or maybe some sensors. So the price might ir might not be related entirely to this camera. By designing a consumer camera with pro features though you can achieve 100k- millions of sales. Maybe what gopro should look at. Ruggedized handheld pro mountable cameras.
Now, I made a mistake in a recent post somewhere. The fab can be involved in problems with a sensor more directly. I forgot that part of the design is the materials formulation of the fab process. In normal generuc chip design this is not such a problem designing under the wirked out rules for the process that have safety margins built in. But in sensor development it is about changing the process to achieve extra performance, not just how you design with it. Then again pushing the boundaries you dip below the safety margines too. So there is another thing. With generic sensor design you can skip all this, reconfigure what has been done before, and come out with a custom version. But if you have to reformulate that is potentially a lot more work at fab level.
Re-edit: Ahh, I forgot to put in about lossleaders. Companies will sometimes sell at a loss to maintain or gain market share. But at this stage again, with the apparent refabing, I hold much much less hope for a price reduction. Maybe next year more video functionality.
Sun Mar 06, 2016 12:41 pm
$2995
See my point?
